This Week's Weird News 5/8/20

By Tim BinnallMay 8, 2020

A tiger statue in England that inadvertently prompted an armed police response, a massive sandstorm that swept over the capital city of Niger, and the arrival of 'murder hornets' to America were among the strange and unusual stories to cross our desk this past week.

In what may turn out to be the proverbial spirit animal of this very bizarre year, so-called 'murder hornets' captured the attention and imagination of the public this week when scientists warned that the worrisome wasps had arrived in America for the first time. The monstrous insects measure a whopping two inches long, possess a powerful venom applied via their piercing stinger, and earned their nickname due to the fact that they are known to wipe out honeybee hives by ripping the heads off of the unfortunate insects.

The wonders of Mother Nature were on full display this week by way of three stories featuring some truly breathtaking scenes. In Kenya, a voracious sinkhole was spotted devouring everything in sight, including huge chunks of mud and grass. Down in Florida, a flock of migratory birds appeared on weather radar and resembled an amazingly colorful storm. Contrasting that beauteous event was a different kind of storm in the form of a massive wall of sand and dust that descended upon the capital city of Niger. At one point during the apocalyptic event, the sky even turned an eerie blood-red hue.

A pair of strange cases centering around confused cops popped up in the news this past week, beginning with an incident in Malaysia in which police guarding a roadblock were startled to hear the sounds of what they believed to be an infamous ghost known in the country as a 'crying vampire.' Fortunately for them, it was later determined that they were the victim of a mischievous hoaxer. Meanwhile, over in England, a cadre of armed officers went on the hunt for what was reported to be a tiger seen sitting in a field, but turned out to be a remarkably realistic statue of a big cat.